Thursday, 16 May 2013

I've seen the Lancaster and Spitfire a few times since I moved to Sheffield 30 years ago. It's even flown over my old house once.

Here are some pictures from today's Dambuster's 70'th anniversary flyover of Derwent/Howden Dams

Lancaster Bomber over Hathersage

Glad it's on "our side " and not carrying any bombs

Seeing this, brings home a little of the reality of WWII. My mum, who lived in London during the war was bombed out three times. She met my Dad, when her family went to help clear up after his house was hit by a V1. I never heard my Mum say a bad word about the Germans, despite all her family went through. But she never forgave their neighbours, who looted their house after one of the bombings and then invited them round to eat tea off their plates.

WWII is something my generation has lived vicariously through the memories and experiences of our parents. It doesn't impact on my kids in the same way - and I think that's probably a good thing.﻿

Sunday, 12 May 2013

It was a cold night but our camp was both extremely comfortable and peaceful. We were packed up and away by 9.15, having decided to make a short day of it rather than lengthen the route with either a lot of road work or a rather contrived loop around Slape Wath Moor. It also meant that we could go down the Incline.

So we turned north and rode along the old trackbed to the road running along Blakey Rigg. Then crossing over the road, we followed the continuation round the head of Farndale.

By the track across the moors to the Lion Inn, Blakey

The day was greyer and colder than on Saturday and we were both wearing an additional layer to keep the wind out. At that time of a Sunday morning, there was nobody about and it felt like we had the whole of the moor to ourselves.

Looking into Westerdale

We took a brief photo stop where the track crossed the path which runs between Farndale to Westerdale before riding on to Bloworth Crossing. As I rode along, a pipit flew ahead of me, landing on the ground in front and then darting forward again as I caught up with it. It reminded me of swifts in Borneo flying in front of the dugout as we went back along the river to camp in the late afternoon after surveying trips in Simon's Cave. I was brought out of my reverie by a grouse which appeared out of the heather, flew across my path and almost brushed my nose with its wing tip. I've never experienced a bird strike whilst on a bike.

And so we arrived back at the top of the Incline and with a final check of the brakes, threw ourselves headlond down the slope. It felt a bit like skiing, where it's sometimes best just to go for it rather than dither around at the top worrying about where to get in the first turn. It's not the most interesting bit of downhill. There is nothing technical on it - no rocks or ruts or gullies to speak of. The views are good at the top. Otherwsie, it was just a case of pointing straight down the hill and hope the brakes wouldn't overheat too much with the extra momentum from the trailer.

Hurtling down the Ingleby Incline

Back at the gate

And from the bottom we just retraced our outward route back to Great Broughton, where we had left the car.

We rode 15 miles on the Sunday with not much ascent, making a total of 40 miles for the weekend. I'd hoped we would do a bit more than that but I was feeling pretty tired after the first day and Hilary wasn't arguing to go on any further. She'd given the new bike a good first run and we'd both re-aquainted ourselves with riding with a trailer, identified a few things we need to sort out and had a good couple of days.

We decided a couple of weeks ago, to put back the Scottish ride until early June, to give the upper sections of the Corryairick a bit longer to clear of snow. We've had enough mountain biking in snow for the year, on out Easter trip to the Vosges - blog posts coming soon(!) and neither of us fancy dragging a trailer through the white stuff. This means that we can now use the last May bank holiday weekend for another training trip with trailers and for that, we have planned a 2-3 day, 50 mile circuit in Galloway Forest

Postscript: There's a video of the full descent of the Ingleby Incline here